County plans federal aid road projects

Paving nearly 10 miles of Rogers Highway and Rouget Road from Tecumseh to Palmyra is part of a plan to spend $1.6 million of Lenawee County’s accumulated federal highway funds next year.

Eight federal aid projects costing an estimated $2.2 million will be proposed to a county federal aid task force on Nov. 20, said Scott Merillat, managing director of the Lenawee County Road Commission on Thursday.

The plan he presented to the road commission board replaces a package of federal aid projects that was scrapped in February after regulations were changed by the Michigan Department of Transportation. New rules limit road commissions’ use of federal aid on projects done with their own crews. The limit is $400,000 divided among no more than five projects each year.

Most of the federal aid money Lenawee County accumulated in recent years will be spent on three paving projects that will be bid to private contractors, Merillat said.

The Rogers Highway and Rouget Road mill and overlay project is estimated to cost $1.4 million. The project was chosen because the road’s Class A status allows state funds to be used as the 20 percent local match instead of road commission funds, said Merillat. The busy truck route has also begun to deteriorate significantly since it was last paved in 1988, he said.“We decided, let’s cap it and at least protect what we have there,” Merillat said.Rogers Highway has been pounded with heavy truck traffic for years, said board member Robert Emery.“It’s in desperate shape,” he said.A four-mile resurfacing project on Weston Road between Pence and Berkey highways near Blissfield is also to be bid out to a private contractor. The cost is estimated at $400,000, including $80,000 in local match money.

The paving means shelving a long-term project of rebuilding Weston Road to Class A status from M-52 to Rodesiler Highway near Blissfield, said Merillat. The project stalled for lack of funds.

“My thought is, it’s going to fall apart before we get it rebuilt as Class A,” Merillat said.

The third project to be bid out is paving less than a mile of Bucholtz Highway from Deerfield village limits to Rodesiler Highway at an estimated cost of $100,000.

Federal funds will also be used in five sealcoating projects to be done by road commission crews estimated to cost $400,000. The projects are 4.4 miles of Clinton-Macon Road, 5.6 miles of County Line Highway south of Deerfield, 2.5 miles of Medina Road, two miles of Riga Highway north of U.S. 223, and three miles of Round Lake Highway between U.S. 223 and U.S. 12.

Merillat said the eight projects “take up basically all of our federal aid. We would have only about $20,000 left.”

Lenawee County receives about $800,000 a year in federal aid, he said. A task force that includes road commission, village and Lenawee Transportation bus service representatives must approve use of the federal aid money. A regional task force must also approve the plan.